


The One Where Roxy Brings Him Snow Globes

by demisms



Series: with good intentions. [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Birthday Party, Dancing, F/M, Friends to more, Friendship, Near Death Experiences, Post-Movie, Weddings, and then back to friends again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 07:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3479996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demisms/pseuds/demisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why’d you stay here? Why’d Merl — <i>Arthur</i> not have you on their arses the second you were discharged from the A&E?”</p><p>“He wanted to,” she tells him gravely, trying to push the cup of orange juice the nurse had left into his hand. </p><p>“And you…?”</p><p>Roxy shrugs, and when he sticks her with that <i>I’m not buying your bullshit</i> gaze, she rolls her eyes. “And I was busy calling the doctors all sorts of names. They wouldn’t let me in to visit.”</p><p>They leave it at that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Roxy Brings Him Snow Globes

**Author's Note:**

> hey hi i had late night feelings and wrote things. aggressively american, so please brit-pick away. and this is completely un-beta'd.
> 
> also, merlin became arthur. and michelle gets to be happy. that's important.

“They gave me a house,” he tells her over the stack of paperwork between them. They’re set up in the massive library in the Kingsman training mansion, slow classical music — that’s all that’s been programmed to play, Eggsy'd _tried_ to changed it numerous times — warbling from a few stealthily hidden speakers in hopes of inspiring enlightened brain activity. Not as if that would make the post-mission paperwork go any faster. Between the missiles, the exploding government officials, rescued world icons, and the wide spread body count, Eggsy figured that if they were to run out of power, the entire mansion could be sufficiently heated with the kindling on the wide wooden table for about a month, maybe more. And the amount of filing Merlin had to do, especially in light of Arthur’s deceit and the fact that five other Kingsman’s heads had exploded with the rest of Valentine’s chosen elite. 

 

The job came with a lot of unexpectedly boring pencil pushing, it seemed. 

 

But also a lot of perks.

 

“A house?” Roxy inquires politely, even looking up from her detailed description of her deployment from the edge of the earth’s atmosphere. It’s _just_ polite inquiring, however. She’d grown up considerably more privileged, had a family home and a family name worth note before she’d gone and joined a society dedicated to preserving world peace. Meaning the package deal of lodging and financial stability that their new positions included probably didn’t mean nearly as much to her as it did to him, but at least with Roxy, Eggsy didn’t feel condescended to when she smiled at him. Never had. 

 

“A fucking big one.”

 

And maybe it’s the hours of studious silence with their noses to the paper, but for some reason, that’s hilarious and they both crack up, laughter drowning out the boring Bach Overture. 

 

* * *

 

 

It _is_ a fucking big house, too. 

 

By any standards. Three stories, four bedrooms, three baths. And with Dean sufficiently hospitalized, there’s no interference when they pack up the tiny concrete flat in a matter of hours and move into the furnished estate. Daisy’s room is even already painted a delicate shade of yellow, and the toy chest filled to the brim with dolls, trucks, and stuffed animals, which Michelle takes one look at and bursts into tears. 

 

It feels good, giving his mother things she deserved. Little things, like a nice dress, decent tea, and a life away from the sort of men who toss around threats and their fists liberally. 

 

He doesn’t think his mother truly buys that he’s a tailor, and just a tailor, but when the years pass without any sign of Dean — with no dealers knocking down the door, no unsavory individuals with unpleasant demands, no late night phone calls, and no demands for child custody hearings — he thinks she’s lulled into enough security that she doesn’t care. Doesn’t _have_ to worry. And that’s just fine with him.

 

And on the few occasions where a mission leaves him battered and bruised enough that his mum would make a fuss and have very good reason to be concerned, he stays at Roxy’s.

 

* * *

 

 

“Eggsy?”

 

His vision is blurred, unclear, and he’s not breathing because there’s a tube down his throat doing it for him. Which, upon discovering, he freaks out and attempts to wrench the incubator out himself, tripping some nurse signal and flooding the hospital room with men and women in scrubs and lab coats, fussing and holding him down so they can extract the tubing without hurting him. 

 

Minutes, and a stern talking to from the doctor about remaining calm, later, it’s just the two of them. Roxy’s perched on the edge of the visitors chair, brow furrowed and lips pressed firmly together. Her suit jacket was draped across the back of her chair, and the blouse underneath was so rumpled that he could have sworn she’d been wearing it for the past three days. Which, upon inquiring about the date, he realizes she had.

 

“Shit, really?” And when Roxy nods, he slumps back against the obnoxiously flat hospital pillows. They were abroad in America, in New York specifically, and had been tracking the kingpin of a human trafficking organization when he’d found them out, rigged an explosion and nearly killed, well, just him. Eggsy’d been between Lancelot and the door, had taken the brunt of the explosion and shrapnel, and was the one with several broken ribs and burnt off eyebrows while Roxy just had a notable scratch on the left side of her face. Three days out meant that the man and his the rest of his organization now had a three day head start around the globe on them, and that it was going to be a bitch and a half to track them all down again. “But you’re alright, yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Why’d you stay here? Why’d Merl — _Arthur_ not have you on their arses the second you were discharged from the A &E?”

 

“He wanted to,” she tells him gravely, trying to push the cup of orange juice the nurse had left into his hand. 

 

“And you…?”

 

Roxy shrugs, and when he sticks her with that _I’m not buying your_ bullshit gaze, she rolls her eyes. “And I was busy calling the doctors all sorts of names. They wouldn’t let me in to visit.”

 

They leave it at that.

 

* * *

 

 

Daisy turns seven, and wants to paint her room green because Eggsy’s room is green. His present to her is doing the renovation together, but also the spectacular birthday party with all her primary school. And a lady pug, which Daisy tries to name BJ — “ _It’s like JB but backwards, Eggsy! Right, Eggsy?_ ” — until their mother intervenes to save face in front of the other children’s parents. 

 

Eggsy’s still chuckling to himself, retreating to the kitchen to crack a beer when the back door opens and Roxy joins him.

 

“We have a front door,” he offers casually, pushing his drink into her free hand and helping himself to another.

 

“I wanted to surprise you three, plus the horse wouldn’t fit through the front door.”

 

“You _didn’t_ get her a pony, did you Rox?” And when she just favors him with a devious smile andslips into the living room to join the balloon and confetti festivities, Eggsy groans. “Roxy!”

 

A certificate for horseback riding lessons gets just as much a delighted screech from Daisy as the green room and puppy had.

 

* * *

 

 

Kingsman don’t operate on double missions very often. They’re not solitary creatures opposed to working together; they’ve all similar styles and the same handler, and are all incredibly confident. The world just has a lot of deep, dark pockets of trouble brewing that need too be dealt with at the same time. It’d been a rough year after Valentine’s V-chips; there’d only been six of them while the new recruits had been trained, and once six new members took up six new mantles, Merlin’d rewarded them all with six weeks paid leave. He and Roxy’d taken up residence on the beaches of Playa Del Carmen for most of those six weeks, but learning to body surf had been the last international mission the two of them had collaborated on together.

 

But they still ran into one another at HQ.

 

And — after seeing him search the tourist markets high and low for one in Cancun — she still brought him snow globes from all her worldly adventures. In exchange for the chocolate he brought her from his.

 

* * *

 

 

Daisy turns ten. 

 

“You have a lovely family, Eggsy,” she tells him in the kitchen again, leaning on the counter, and sighing. If he hadn’t known any better, he’d say she sounded wistful. 

 

* * *

 

 

She looks like Rambo when she steps through the smoking doorframe of the prison cell she just blew the hinges off to rescue him. It’s a compliment, he assures her as she supports his weight while they limp to their escape helicopter. 

 

“You’re like a _real_ knight.”

 

“You’re concussed.”

 

* * *

 

 

Gwaine and Morien die. Not just normal deaths, they are apprehended by a terrorist organization and tortured on camera before being executed. The bullet to the back of the head was the only mercifully quick thing about the whole ordeal, and after debriefing around the Round Table, Eggsy takes off his glasses and stares at the wall where Roxy’s three dimensional hologram had been just moments before. It become a two man extract team, to retrieve the bodies and finish the mission — which had quickly turned from an intel gathering mission to a “quiet closure” mission, also known as Merlin’s tactful way of killing every son of a bitch associated with the cause. Eggsy’s not exactly surprised to find out his backup has stunning hazel eyes and quick wit that would leave an MIT professor reeling, and he smiles at her from across the helicopter cargo hold before they throw themselves bodily from the carrier and free-fall 20,000 feet.

 

He smiles at her again, in the mud. Through the cracked lenses of his glasses and halo suit helmet as he rolls onto his side amidst the burning wreckage of the terrorists home base. Their aerodynamic suits were no less bulletproof than their bespoke tailored suits, but Eggsy can feel the burn of a bullet embedded in his shoulder, and even through the dark of night, he can see the blood smearing down Roxy’s abdomen from where her hand is pressed firmly just above her hip. 

 

The smile slips from his features, and wounded or not, Eggsy crawls to her side to splay his bloody gloved hand over hers. 

 

“You gotta keep pressure on that, Rox. Come on, more than that — Merlin’ll be here soon, you’ll be fine.”

 

But she’s shaking and breathing short and sharp through her teeth. And that’s a _lot_ of blood between their hands. 

 

“Come _on_ ,” he insists, a little harsher than necessary, and barks Merlin’s name into his ear pieceto resounding static. “Fuck!”

 

“Eggsy, if I don’t —”

 

“ _No_ ,” he cuts her off preemptively. “No, don’t talk like that, okay? You’re going to be fine. You’re gonna —”

 

“If I don’t,” she repeats, stronger this time, but Roxy’s newfound conviction does little to ease the painful knot in his stomach. “Get out of here, I need you to go talk to my dad, alright? Please, Eggsy, tell him I love him. And, and —” Her other hand comes across her body to paw at the back of his hand, like she wants to hold his hand, but Eggsy refuses to let up pressure on the bullet wound. “Tell my mum that I’m sorry about all the fights, and the military…”

 

“Hey, hey,” he soothes, voice barely shaking himself. “Now’s not the time for regrets, alright?”

 

“I’m really scared, Eggsy, I —”

 

“Would you _shut up_?” Which tears itself from his throat in desperation, just as he catches the faintest blip of Arthur’s voice in his ear. “Alright? You’re not gonna die, so stop being all dramatic and the like. This ain’t that kind of movie, Rox, and if you’ve got regrets, you just think long and hard on how you’re gonna get rid of them when you get outta the hospital, alright?” There’s tears in her eyes, and the beat of a chopper in the distance, but she lifts her chin in a sort of affirmative gesture. And since he isn’t holding her hand, Eggsy makes due with not letting up pressure on her wound until they’re back in the cargo hold of the chopper and Mordred takes over the controls so Arthur can come back and apply a rough patch and cauterization to an unconscious Roxy’s mangled stomach. 

 

* * *

 

 

His mother remarries for a second time. 

 

But this time to a short doctor that stares at her like she hung the moon, who loves Daisy and owns a horse for her to ride. And who happens to be terrified of Eggsy, for completely logical, if not completely explainable reasons. He might work into his speech something about how he’d no qualms correcting men who didn’t act like complete gentlemen to the important ladies in their lives, to much applause from the small wedding party, and much sweating on his new step father’s part. But Michelle had laughed, kissed the back of both Eggsy and her new love’s hands, and seemed to float on air for the rest of the evening. This time around, everything felt like it was going to be alright.

 

As has become her habit, Roxy arrives partway through the festivities, dressed to the nines in a dark green dress and with her hair piled atop her head in a way that has him wondering if she just jumped (out of) off a plane and headed straight here, but also not caring because she looked flawless. And she’d brought him a snow globe, which stays by his champagne flute at the head table while they twirl around the dance floor in a slow waltz. 

 

She’d not RSVP’ed, and is famished, and Eggsy insists Roxy polish off the duck from his plate after they dance. And for a while the two of them sit away from the rest of the wedding party, sipping water and admiring the joys of _normal life_ before them. This is what they’re fighting to protect, he thinks, and a few moments later, Roxy echoes his thoughts.

 

“This is why we do it.”

 

“Hm,” he hums in agreement, as his new stepfather twirls Daisy around a few times.

 

“Does it frustrate you?” Roxy follows up, and Eggsy’s eyebrows arch so high he feels like they might crawl off his face.

 

“What?”

 

“Does it frustrate you? That you’ll never have that like, well, _that_.” She’s gesturing slightly, towards the happy laughs and drunk dancing, and he thinks he gets her meaning, but let’s her continue anyway. “None of us will, we knew that going in. But I still sometimes…”

 

“What, regret?”

 

“Yes, regret.”

 

Which simply won’t do, so Eggsy drains his champagne flute and whisks her off to dance again.

 

* * *

 

 

There’s no rules between interdepartmental fraternization. Frankly, the Kingsman had previously been entirely comprised of heteronormative men, and it had never been an issue before. Even more frankly, Eggsy rather doubts it’s going to become a problem now, because Roxy slides off of him with an air of finality, and he inherently knows that this? Was a one time thing. 

 

But she stays. Lays under his arm and traces the scars he’s amassed in the last twelve years — which was, surprisingly, a _lot_ considering the Kingsman bragged bulletproof suits — and lets him do the same. And when his fingertips brush across the gnarled scar from the bullet that’d nearly killed her all those years ago, Roxy doesn’t even flinch; doesn’t pull away, doesn’t break eye contact. She just sort of smiles, and after he dips down to kiss along her hip, wraps her arms around his neck and hugs him tightly. 

 

* * *

 

 

Dr. Lawrence Hubert has his own house.

 

Michelle tells Eggsy that she thinks she might like to move into her husbands estate instead; that there were even better schools for Daisy in the neighborhood; that he’s a grown man who needs his own space, his own house now. She twists her hands while she talks, like she’s afraid he’s going to object, but he hasn’t the heart to do anything more than smile and help her pack. 

 

JB goes with his mother and sister. He spends too much time abroad, and while he could hire a nanny for the aging pug, he thinks his dog might enjoy just staying with BJ and his mum and sister. Which ultimately leaves Eggsy with a three stories, four bedrooms, three baths. All empty.

 

It gets to the point where he digs out Mr. Pickles from the box of Harry’s personal effects in the attic — he’d not had any family, either; that seemed a running constant with the Kingsman for very obvious reasons — and almost cracks a beer for the long dead stuffed dog when the doorbell rings. 

 

“Were you lonely?” she asks, skeptical while pushing Mr. Pickles to the opposite end of the couch before sprawling out and taking his beer. 

 

“Something like that,” Eggsy admits, with enough social graces to duck his head and rub at the back of his neck (to obscure his smirk).

 

When she asks to stay the night, and compliments the color of Daisy’s old room, and the line of snow gloves along the window sill, Eggsy smirks and leans agains the door jamb with a half-assed attempt at seduction written all over his face. “Then you’d _love_ my room.”

 

“I’m sure I would,” she drawls back at him, unzipping her skirt as he smirks at his feet and closes the door.

 

* * *

 

 

Next time she goes to France, Roxy switches things up. Instead of the fourth Eiffel tower snow globe, she brings him a nice bottle of wine. And a French Bulldog puppy with a red collar and a “HH” engraved on the tags. 

 


End file.
